Sun, wind and roof

It's unlikely that Dick Bremer reads this blog, but on the off chance that he does, a challenge:

Explain why it is more aesthetically pleasing to see an outfielder lose a fly ball in the sun — or misjudge it because of erratic wind gusts, as happened Wednesday afternoon to Detroit's Brennan Boesch — than to lose it in the Metrodome roof.

As a practical matter, it's the same result. Boesch's bobble resulted in a pair of unearned runs in a game the Twins won by one.

There is no environment that doesn't affect the game. None. Indoors, outdoors, turf, grass, whatever — baseball is a subtle game, with fractions of inches making huge differences. The challenges confronting outfielders in Target Field are different from the ones confronting them in the Metrodome, and the gusty winds of Wednesday may have been worse for them than the dingy canvas of the Dome.

Later in the game, FSN showed a youngster in the stands, which (again) started Bremer off on the tragedy of generations denied the opportunity to see the Twins play home games outdoors. This continued whining about the Metrodome is a tired act. It's history. It's past. Let it go.

A void in the booth

The great ones are going, and they aren't being replaced.

Ernie Harwell on Tuesday became the latest baseball voice to fall permanently silent. There's been a string of them in recent years — Herb Carneal here, Harry Kalas in Philadelphia, Phil Rizzuto and Lindsey Nelson in New York, Herb Score in Cleveland, Jack Buck in St. Louis, Harry and Skip Carey ... They were all radio guys first and foremost. Most of them did TV, some of them a lot of TV, because that's where the audience has migrated over the years, but they all started on the radio side years ago, when the TV broadcasts were relatively rare.

On the same day that Harwell died, John Gordon completely and utterly botched the call on a key play of the Twins-Tigers game. In the ninth inning, with Detroit's Alex Avila on second, Ramon Santiago hit a grounder to the shortstop hole. Gordon's call went something like this:

Base hit! A diving stop by Everett! Oh!

At which point, perhaps because he was aware that he had just misidentified J.J. Hardy, he got all tongue-tied and unable to describe how Hardy saw Avila rounding third base, threw the ball to Nick Punto, who then ran Avila down.

You probably didn't hear Gordon butcher the call. If you did, you couldn't possibly have figured out what was going on. That's the thing about radio: If the announcer is inattentive or inarticulate, there's no visual to save the day.

It's tough work. I'm sure I'd be terrible at the job, starting with the limitations of my voice and including all the other aspects of it, including those that the listener is unaware of.

My real point: There are doubtless good, even great, young play-by-play men out there. But they're doing TV, not radio. It's easier and it pays better. And the guys who mastered the art in the era when radio was all we fans had most days — they are dying off.

Shows what I know

Contrary to my speculation of Monday morning, Nick Blackburn is back and starting today, with Jeff Manship (probably) returning to Rochester and the Twins riding with an 11-man pitching staff for the time being.

That time being until Joe Mauer is ready to roll again. Which is apparently likely to be sooner than the "week-to-week" floated Sunday by Ron Gardenhire, who apparently said that in hopes of dissuading media types from asking every day if Mauer was ready again.

Meanwhile, we get to watch the legend of Wilson Ramos (above) continue to grow.

Twins roster issues

It's unclear at this point how long Joe Mauer's going to be out with his bone bruised heel. Ron Gardenhire described it Sunday as more week-to-week than day-to-day, which sounds like disabled list material, but the team website lists May 3 as his possible return date.

That seems overly optimistic, but there's been no move to DL him.

Meanwhile, Pat Neshek's on the DL -- that's the move that cleared a spot for Wilson Ramos -- and Nick Blackburn's on family emergency leave, with Jeff Manship (above) in his place.

The rules for Blackburn's leave say he has to be gone at least three days and no more than seven. So he could miss another start -- that spot in the rotation comes up Thursday against Baltimore -- and Manship would obviously pick that up.

Right now, the Twins have 11 pitchers and 14 position players active. This is not Gardenhire's preferred roster split, and even for those fans who think 12 pitchers are too many, it's not helping the bench either, since Mauer can't play.

I'm guessing that by the time Blackburn has to be reactivated, they'll decide to put Mauer on the DL. Then the question will be whether to keep Manship up to serve as a long reliever or return him to Rochester and bring up another guy for Gardenhire's preferred mix-and-match relief strategy.

It probably won't be Jose Mijares, whose possible return is listed on that same webpage as mid-May.

Poll stuff: Pitchers and catchers

Before I record the results of last week's poll, a few words about the new one:

It follows a tangent from the Monday print column, in which I suggest that Jamie Moyer's career is as worthy of Hall of Fame induction as that of some guys who are in the Hall.

So there are six names up there, four of them in and two out. I could easily have expanded this list in either direction — Billy Pierce, Bucky Walters, Lon Warneke among those left out, Burleigh Grimes, Vic Willis, Jack Chesbro and Catfish Hunter among those in. Among others.

In case you want to take this question seriously enough to look at the records of the six I selected, here they are:

Jim Bunning, 224-184, 3.27. Pitched 1955-71, mostly for Detroit and Philadelphia (NL). Now U.S. senator from Kentucky.

Jesse Haines, 210-158, 3.64. Pitched 1920-37 for St. Louis (NL). Threw a "knuckleball" that was probably more the knuckle curve of today.

Ted Lyons, 260-230, 3.67. Pitched 1923-42, 46 for Chicago (AL), the late interruption being for World War II. Famous "Sunday pitcher" the last six years or so of his career, starting once a week in the Sunday doubleheader.

Rube Marquard, 201-177, 3.08. Pitched 1908-25, mostly for New York (NL), Brooklyn and Boston (NL). Almost everything he told Lawrence Ritter for the book "Glory of Their Times" proved to be a lie.

Jack Morris, 254-186, 3.90. Pitched 1977-94, mostly for Detroit but with one memorable season with the Twins. Game Seven of 1991, baby.

Jamie Moyer, 261-197, 4.22 . Pitched 1986-present. Moved ahead of Lyons on the all-time wins list Sunday.

How old is Jamie Moyer? When he broke in with the Cubs, he was a teammate of Gary Matthews. Last night, he pitched against Gary Matthews Jr.— and Junior is 35 himself.

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OK, back to the past. The question was who is the second-best catcher in Twins history. Earl Battey won a solid majority of the 41 votes (23, or 56 percent), as he should have.

Brian Harper had eight votes (19 percent), A.J. Pierzynski six (14 percent), Butch Wynegar two (4 percent) and None of the Above also had two votes.

Into the bullpen

Some curious moves, or non-moves, Saturday by Ron Gardenhire with his bullpen crew.

Going at it in chronological order:

* He pulled starter Jeff Manship after six innings and 86 pitches. Maybe a bit hasty, but it was a one-run game at that point, and Manship hasn't exactly established himself.

* Brian Duensing pitched the seventh, throwing just 10 pitches. And that was it for him for the night. Which, in retrospect, is curious because later — after the game had gone into extra innings — Dick Bremer talked about how Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson mentioned that they don't have a long man in the bullpen. Duensing should be the long man, but he has been used as a short man — in fact, that's probably why Manship got the start. Duensing isn't the rotation's Plan B now. Manship is.

My point being: If they want a long man, it would have made sense to stretch Duensing out a bit more and give him the eighth inning.

* Instead, they went with Matt Guerrier, and he blew up after getting two outs. Three hits, two runs, tied game. The big blows came from left-handed hitters, this with LOOGY Ron Mahay available.

It is rare for one of the Twins set up guys to start an inning, give up runs, and still finish the inning. Almost all the middle relief meltdowns I chronicle here involve three or four relievers, none of whom can get the first guy out. This blown lead was a reversal of Gardy's SOP.

* Mahay got the ball to open the ninth, but after three batters, one hit and two outs, he gave way to ... not Pat Neshek, not Jesse Crain, but Alex Burnett, the rookie who has been limited to low-leverage situations.

Crain had pitched the day before and, according to Bremer, did some more throwing on the side earlier Saturday, so it's not surprising that Gardenhire/Anderson wanted to hold him out. But choosing Burnett over Neshek suggests that Neshek slid down the totem pole with his lousy outing on Wednesday.

*Burnett got a long leash. He threw 36 pitches and ultimately took the loss, and only 12 of the 36 pitches were strikes (He had two intentional walks, but even if those eight pitches are ignored it's still 16 balls to 12 strikes). It took a big-time throw from Denard Span and catch-block-tag at the plate by Drew Butera (photo above) to keep the Tribe off the board in the 10th, and Burnett didn't get an out in the 11th.

* Crain pitched after all. Closer Jon Rauch warmed up in the eighth; Neshek didn't even do that much.

For the game, the Minnesota bullpen worked 4.2 innings, allowing three runs on seven hits and four walks. The only one who truly pitched well was Duensing.

Errors vs. misplays

There were two failed defensive plays in Friday night's Twins-Indians game that resulted in six runs scoring.

Six runs that really shouldn't have scored, but are charged as earned runs anyway because the defensive players weren't charged with errors.

The first one came in the second inning, on what should have been a routine double play. Cleveland second baseman Luis Valbuena bounced his throw to first base, and first baseman Matt LaPorta didn't make the scoop. No error, but it kept the inning alive and brought home a run. Orlando Hudson followed with hits to chase home two more.

Then it was the Twins' turn. In the fifth inning, Mike Redmond hit a fly to right center, and Denard Span chased Michael Cuddyer off it. Redmond got a gift double. Kevin Slowey entered that inning with a shutout and a low pitch count; by the time he finally got out of it, he'd thrown more than 100 pitches and had given up three runs. Had Redmond's ball been caught, the inning would have been over much sooner, and without a run for Cleveland.

The traditional fielding stats make nothing of those misplays. Even the advanced metrics, as I understand them, don't penalize Valbuena for failing to turn that double play.

But they sure count on the scoreboard.